Not sick
by JayIven72
Summary: Snippets from a Potter childhood, from Petunia's point of view. Trans!Harry


Petunia had always liked to grow out the boy's hair. It was a soft black, shiny, wispy little curls that snaked behind ears and framed delicate features innocently. Dudley's could never quite render the same effect, the dry strands would fall limp against a pink cheek and end up with the appearance of neglect, rather than careful pruning.

So that was just the way it was.

And as the years spun by, the dark locks filled out to the boy's shoulder blades, thick and luxurious. Vernon began to complain of it, thrusting handfuls of moulted hair right up against her nose and face a beat red. He swelled up in moments like those, the blood flushing against mottled skin and despite herself, she would have to stuff quivering fingers down the front of her apron.

She wasn't as much scared by her husband, but intimidated. Or so she firmly told herself.

She took the scissors to the boy that very night. Not her fine embroidery set, like she had first decided, but the choppy kitchen ones at Vernon's request. He had thought she would soil the engraved beauties with the filth leaking out of the child and she, not one for direct conflict, had hastened to agree.

Even in years to come, Petunia would insist to everyone that listened that she really did try to cut the child's hair. If only because Vernon had resolutely informed all the neighbourhood that it was a freakish boy, not girl, that they were so thoughtfully taking in. To save face.

And she did.

She endured those gasping sobs that escaped pouted lips. She carefully looked away from the salt stained cheeks and fading tear tracks. She flitted away from her sister's gaze with an ease that she should not have owned.

"Now you look like a real boy."

She sobbed herself to sleep for her thoughtless comment, mouthed sadly back at her.

But the next morning, it was back again, those soft tresses dancing down the nape of his neck.

Petunia had had to turn away to hide the slight smile that played at the corner of her lips as he bounced on the heels of his feet, eager little grin and washing up bubbles up to the shoulder. His spirit wasn't even dampened when Vernon took a sharp hand to his face, though she couldn't have said the same for her, instead he skittered back off to his cupboard with a spring in his step, despite a growling stomach and pink handprint across each cheekbone.

That evening she had stood framed at the doorway to their bedroom and murmured out nervous comment.

"He's only 4, Vernon, Lily was just the same at that age, they can't control the freakishness. We can still save him. Save, remember, that's what we agreed-"

She went to bed with flushed cheeks to match little Harry's and an aching gut that did not. She vowed that night that Dudley should never know, she would protect him, even if she could never protect Harry.

The very thought twisted up her stomach unpleasantly, but she didn't let it linger long enough to murmur out apologies to her once beloved sister, it pained her too much.

###

By the time Harry was seven, his hair had reached his shoulder blades.

Petunia had never met James Potter, nor had she ever intended to, but if the pictures were anything to go by, he held the same strong nose, firm brow and thin lip. And yet, you could place the two side by side and come out with little resemblance. There was softness to the child's features that James could never have dreamed of, though he surely wouldn't have. The slight curve of his cheekbones perhaps, or the soft furrow of his eyebrows.

But more was it the stance the child held himself in. Weight across one hip, straightened back and deft grace.

It was with a niggling pride that she realised she held herself in much the same manner.

And it was with that pride that she pulled together the confidence to gather up a few of her hair pins, an old bobble or two and silk band and throw them down on the table before him as he swept up the crumbs one iced December eve.

He had raised those emerald eyes to hers with a muted confusion, pausing, briefly, as if waiting for her to snatch them cruelly back up once more. But when she made no move to do anything of the sought, he swept them carefully into his shirt, all pulled up to his chest to make a pocket.

"Three sections. Left over the middle, then right over the middle. Repeat."

"What?" Came the soft voice, escaping the child as nothing more than a whisper, a whisper, she realised with a shudder, Vernon had trained into him.

With a fervent glance to the doorway she carefully knelt before Harry. She pulled forward a chunk of his hair in front of his eyes.

"Three sections." She pulled the lock apart into rough segments. His eyes never once moved from her fingertips and despite herself, Petunia felt an odd thrill of confidence. Watching her lessons. Interested in her knowledge. Not like Dudley, she loved him more than Earth herself, but he was his father's son.

"Left over the middle, then right over the middle. Repeat." The braid was scruffy and rushed, but his awed grin was nothing of the sought. She pinned back the plait behind his ear with one of her own hair clips, ignoring the tumbling section that fell down across one eye.

"There's a piece of bread on the side, now get out of here and don't come back until that entire list is done, boy."

He quickly scrambled back, mood switching just as fast as her own. Adapted, skittish, a nervous animal, never sure of what he would meet.

He only paused at the doorway momentarily, muttering a few words that she barely even caught.

"My name isn't boy. Boy is all wrong."

She pretended not to hear, if only because she didn't understand 'wrong' and if anyone had noticed she stopped calling Harry boy after that, they didn't voice it.

###

When Harry turned ten he began to wear his hair swept back in a neat bun. She didn't dare ask where he had learned the intricate knot and nor did her husband, so it was decided that he was okay.

She didn't think much of her husbands agreement anymore, if anything, the long hair covered purple bruises easily and he compliments on "their polite little girl" were- in his eyes- only further proof of the sacrifices the man endured to bring up Harry. It was a good excuse for blood stained carpets.

One day she found him with nimble fingers tangled up amongst her jewellery.

The hoover was running on the carpet and duster propped carefully against a bed post, but Harry didn't look as though he had been near either in quite a while. Instead, around his neck hung a simple pendant and his fingertips were slightly smudged with blush.

Her first instinct was to scream for Vernon. Her second was to choke down that very same scream with everything within her.

Because his face was alive.

Petunia had never noticed how blank his expressions were before that moment, carefully impassive and structured into something that looked just close enough to the real thing that no one doubted a thing. He was a fine actor, that boy.

But now, it stretched bubblegum lips out into a pretty grin, lit up her sister's eyes with that very same passion she knew so well.

So she didn't scream for Vernon, instead she placed a gentle grip against the boy's thin shoulder and started him towards her plush stool.

Petunia watched the colour drain from his head as she raised a wipe, though he didn't cry.

Petunia watched the rush of confusion as she swept up her old makeup brush.

Petunia watched that same grin directed back at her as she dictated her work.

"Now, eyes always come first, don't overdo it mind you. Nude eye shadow, you aren't a whore. Little mascara, top and bottom. Your eyebrows are fine, don't push your luck with them. Foundation before concealer, your friends will tell you otherwise but they are simply wrong. Too young for lipstick, gloss is better anyway, makes you look young and like you value natural beauty."

Her hands were gentle, ghosting over the skin and almost undetectable as she blotted a thick layer of concealer over dark bruises. Harry simply smiled up at her.

Finally, she reached round to the back of his head and let the hair tumble down to frame those eager eyes.

For a single moment, time didn't exist. Petunia simply stared at the boy before her who no longer looked like a little boy at all. He looked like the very same little child she held in her arms all those years ago, with the wispy curls and compliments. She could still remember the promises she had made back then, of saving him from the bitter world that stole her sister.

She couldn't even bare to look him, for all she had done.

"Thank you."

His voice was higher, carefully so. Just like his posture. Just like his comments.

"What did you mean, wrong?" She didn't turn from the doorway and the question took herself much by the same surprise it did the boy.

A long pause stretched out between them and for a moment, she wondered if he meant the words at all. Then, came his careful voice once more.

"It just is. My face, my body, all those names. It's all under my skin, itchy. Wrong."

She did a double take.

"Why?"

She glanced quickly back, eyes darting before the boy and the door. She just caught the confused shrug.

"I thought I might be sick. Uncle thinks I'm sick. Makes sense. But I don't feel sick. Just… wrong."

A heartbeat of silence.

"You aren't sick." Petunia murmured, mind caught up on recalling sallow faced young girl who had sat up on Lily's desk chair, long dark locks falling to the carpet in chunks.

"Oh?" He responded.

She resumed her exit, calling over her shoulder as she left.

"Keep the makeup on the desk and finish cleaning the room before Vernon gets back, child."

That evening, she left a dog eared book in his cupboard and he came to make breakfast with an odd little scrunched up face.

"I'm not sick." He had said.

"Mhm." She replied.  
###

When the large man came, she had had quite enough.

Petunia was a cowardly woman, she had accepted that after Vernon had hit the boy that first time. She was okay with that.

But they were wizards. They had magic. They knew where the child slept.

They should have known.

She wasn't sure it was actually her that propelled her body across the room and steered itself in front of Harry. Nor did she recognise the harsh words that escaped her own lips.

She wasn't even sure if she liked her actions.

"We call her Ivy."

She let the silence choke them.

Harry ignored the fact that they had never done anything of the sought and nor that they ever would and stuck out a small palm.

"Ivy. Ivy Potter. A pleasure to meet you sir."

For once in her life, Petunia felt a little brave and a little proud, watching Harry skip off into the boat with her plait pulling curls back from his eyes and her makeup painting a mask on his features and the name that she chose.

All her's, but Lily's book.

Lily had only struck her once across the cheek in their entire childhood: watched as Petunia spat copper blood down to the pavement. Lily had scared Petunia, that one time, snarling out her words with her lips sneering.

"Severus. Is. A. Boy."

Now, Petunia thought, she understood a little- though the knowledge did little to quell the vindictive spark buried deep within. Lily had spoken as if she were ignorant, she wasn't ignorant and now they were even.

She felt even braver when Harry waved her goodbye.

It was worth her own bruises.

###

Petunia Dursley was a cowardly woman, she was also not a good woman: abused and abusive. But when her neice returned the next year and spoke to her only once, she felt the balance shift a little in her favour.

"Pomfrey is sorting out all the wrong inside and the Headmaster is sorting out all the wrong around and I'm sorting out all the wrong up here." A finger tapped lightly against the black curls.

"Even Snape is okay with it all: you wouldn't think so, he hates me something special and sometimes he gives me these long, strange looks like I'm bug under a microscope. But even HE doesn't care..." The child seemed to finally realise her rambling, cutting it to a halt with an embarrassed flush before continuing in a low murmur.

"-I'm not sick. I'm just... Ivy...yeah, thanks for everything."

Petunia gave the girl a tight lipped grin and a list of daily chores.

**Edited in response to one of my reviews, thank you for pointing out that I didn't give Petunia much motive in the first version. All that was changed was the presence of Snape, giving Petunia a bit more character. **


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